
I decided to share my huge White-fronted Bee-eater collection with every one. Hope you will enjoy them. Will really appreciate views ..comments.....or just a



We took thousands images of this beautiful colourful Bee-eaters at their nest.
One of South Africa’s most beautiful resident Birds and one of the most complex family-based social systems.
They are widely spread through South Africa and are found in the vast savannah regions of the Highveld and bushveld. They live in large groups, as we observed in our colony of about 100 of them. Colonies comprise of extended family groups with overlapping generations with cooperative breeding. Non-breeding individuals become helpers to relatives and assist to raise their young.
We discovered their nest a few years back on a private Farmers land and have been monitoring them for hundreds of hours during the years.
We have been able to photograph some interesting behaviour rarely seen by people.
They start building and repairing nest during the winter months and only return to the nest at dawn, roosting for the night.
In August during courtship they are very active with males chasing each other around constantly. We monitored for the first time how a Male and female would sit together on a perch before mating. The Male will catch and insect and bring it back to the Female. He will then smack the Bee or other insect against the perch while the Female waits patiently. The Male will then offer the Bee to the Female and after about 3 feedings the Female will allow the Male to mate.
The nesting site are in holes in banks, while the egg laying takes place at the end of September with incubation period +- 20 days. At this time the Female spends most of the time in the nest with the Male bringing her food. The rest of the colony only returns at dawn to roost.
The nest becomes very active after the chicks are born. During this time the entire colony helps with the feeding process of the chicks.
Their diet is made up primarily of Bees, but our observation shows that they also take other flying insects. We photographed and have data of over 30 different insects they caught from Grasshoppers to Romans. This is an observation I have never seen photographed before.
At the moment it seems that the Mining activity in the area had no influence on their breeding activity, but with the demand for Coal increasing, their habitat will always be under threat.
Hope my images will tell their story of this beautiful bird.
To be continued.........many more to come....
